Chapter Text
Chapter 24
Weeks. To Bilbo, it felt like weeks since the last time he and Thorin had gone to bed without the intention of falling asleep. It may have only been a few days but the utter stress of not knowing when someone was going to try to kill him coupled with the complete boredom of being trapped in his rooms for his own safety made it feel like an eternity. Now, well-
Thorin’s sleep shirt lay somewhere in the vicinity of their fireplace where Bilbo had carelessly thrown it after peeling it off Thorin’s back and Bilbo’s sleep pants, well, Bilbo was quite certain he hadn’t even had the opportunity to pull them on before he’d wrapped his legs around Thorin’s waist where he’d remained as Thorin carried him to their bed. Trading heated kisses, soft touches, and sensual sounds, Bilbo felt there was absolutely nothing that could upset him in this moment as he sucked a bruise onto Thorin’s shoulder.
“Out of bed now! We’re about to be attacked!”
Almost nothing.
“Nori,” Thorin (who had been nibbling quite nicely on the tip of Bilbo’s ear) growled and lifted away from where he lay over Bilbo, “I swear to Mahal if this is another false alarm I’m going to strangle you with your own-”
“Sure. Great. Just get up and arm yourselves. They’ll be here any second.”
“How in Yavanna’s name did you even get in here?” Bilbo demanded crossly, not even bothering to move even as Thorin sighed and climbed out of bed.
“Never mind that!” Nori snapped from the other room and Bilbo heard the locking bar fall into place over their door before he returned to the bedroom and slammed and locked that door too. “If you have your mithril shirt handy, I suggest you put it on before you get your little letter opener.”
“Nori-” Thorin started.
“Just do it!”
Bilbo turned to snap right back at Nori but paused. The crazed look Nori had worn for the past few months was completely gone, replaced with steel resolve and perhaps a hint of fear as he fingered a set of knives and turned around, searching the room. It took Bilbo a moment to understand what he was muttering to himself. “Where will they come from? Through the door? Through the garden? Blast through the ceiling? Blast through the wall? Did they find my passages?”
Without further complaint, Bilbo scurried out of bed and into the dressing room. He grabbed the mithril and threw it on before grabbing Sting and the dagger Thorin had made him. He was reaching for his trousers when glass shattered in the front room.
Bilbo swore. The only glass he knew of anywhere near their rooms was in his greenhouse.
Someone was going to pay for hurting his garden.
Discarding the notion that he needed to wear trousers to fight, Bilbo stomped out of his closet just as something smashed against the bedroom door.
“So who is about to come through that door?” Bilbo asked as he took his place next to Thorin.
Nori’s eyes flickered around the room, searching the stone for imperfections and weaknesses where someone might break through, or so Bilbo guessed. “Dwarrow, I’m assuming,” Nori said as he shifted his feet into a more balanced position. “Don’t really know to be honest.”
Bilbo straightened out of his guarded position, casting a look at Nori and opening his mouth to demand how in Yavanna’s name he could know there was an attack coming but not know what was coming to attack them.
“Focus,” Thorin snapped and Bilbo dropped back into a ready stance. Prepared for whatever might break through the door.
By now, he could hear fighting on the other side of the door as well as what sounded like muffled khuzdul shouting, though Bilbo couldn’t understand any of the words.
“Back! Get back!” Nori ordered suddenly, grabbing Bilbo by his nightshirt and throwing him onto the bed before grabbing Thorin and dragging him to the small table they kept in their room. Nori flipped it onto its side and pulled Thorin down behind it as Bilbo scrambled off the edge of the bed, placing it between him and the door.
Seconds later, their bedroom door and a third of the wall blasted its way into their room, sending rocks, iron pieces, and wood splinters crashing into everything. Bilbo ducked and covered his head as debris reigned down on him and the floor shook beneath his feet. When the larger chunks settled, Bilbo peeked up over the edge of the bed.
Greenish grey dust floated in the air, settling slowly. Blurry figures moved in the room.
Thorin and Nori shoved their table over and charged toward the doorway, weapons raised, mouths open in muffled war cries.
Bilbo rubbed the back of his hand across his ear, careful not to cut himself with the dagger he still held. He couldn’t hear Thorin clearly. Not through the strange, high-pitched tone he heard. He pulled his hand back with a grimace. Blood and a strange, yellowish goo smeared the back of it. His ears hurt horribly and that high tone wouldn’t stop. He shook his head, trying to dispel dizziness before climbing onto the bed.
The dust was settling faster now and he could see Thorin and Nori trading blows with a handful of dwarrow dressed in dark clothing and hoods. With a wordless cry, Bilbo leaped from the bed and into the fray, tackling two dwarrow at once and driving Sting and his dagger into each of them in turn, just as Nori had shown him. He pulled his weapons free and lurched back to his feet, turning to fight his way to Thorin, shouting the entire time and unable to hear much more than the peal of a single high note. He snarled and blindly hacked his way through dwarrow, trying to reach his husband.
The dwarrow pressed back against him, keeping him from Thorin. He parried sword blows and dodged out of the way of hammers and axes, darting in when he had a clear moment. He cursed when a sword nicked his side, sending white-hot stinging into his body. He fought and fought, trying to push forward, trying to find Thorin in the pandemonium. His feet slid against the floor in the blood of felled attackers and from the blood dripping down his side. He couldn’t gain ground and slowly found himself being pushed back.
There were too many. Even with Nori, Thorin, and Bilbo fighting at their best, they wouldn’t make it through this mess. Bilbo strained, trying to hear Thorin’s voice one last time before the wave of dwarrow trying to kill him succeeded.
The ringing didn’t cease but suddenly, there was a break in the press of bodies around him. Breathing heavily, Bilbo searched for Thorin, dreading what he might find, only to blink in confusion as Ori, coated in dust and grime and blood and with a book tucked into his belt, smashed a dwarrow with- wait. Was that the ceremonial Warhammer they kept mounted near the front door? Bilbo watched in amazement for a moment as Ori systematically plowed his way through the attackers.
Taking a deep breath, Bilbo lifted Sting again even as his arms screamed at the effort and dove back into the fray, following Ori as he tore through what were hopefully would-be assassins.
Thorin appeared in the mass of bodies. Blood dripped from a cut somewhere in his hair down the side of his face but thankfully not in his eyes. When he caught sight of Bilbo, he slammed orcrist’s hilt into the head of the dwarf attacking him and stepped over the body to reach Bilbo’s side.
A dwarf flew between them and Bilbo looked to the side just in time to watch Ori grab another dwarf by the collar, pick them up, and throw them across the room where they smashed into the far wall. Nori leaned against the wall, using it to brace himself as blood dripped from his leg and the opposite arm. Bruising flourished down his arm, visible through his torn sleeve.
Guards flooded the room, surrounding Bilbo and Thorin and attacking the remaining assailants. As guards checked the prone forms around them, Bilbo moved toward Thorin. He shook his head when Thorin said something.
“I can’t hear you,” Bilbo all but shouted at Thorin. “Where’s that sound coming from?”
Thorin reached over to Bilbo and touched the side of his face, just below his ears, concern etched into the lines on his face.
“Yes, they hurt,” Bilbo said. “And I can’t hear much other than a flute or a – a – what is that tiny flute again? A pipaloo? Packora? Whatever it is, it won’t stop.”
Thorin turned and said something to a guard and Bilbo thought he read Oin’s name on Thorin’s lips before Thorin guided him over to sit on a filthy, dust and grit covered chair he had just turned right-side-up again. Bilbo knocked as much dust off the seat as he could before sitting down and allowing Thorin to look him over. The only injury Bilbo could see was the one in Thorin’s hair. When Thorin bent to look at Bilbo’s side, Bilbo ran his hands along Thorin’s scalp until he found the culprit, filled with dusty grit. Thorin flinched away from his touch and held up a rock, tapping it against his head. Hit with a rock during the explosion then. That made sense.
As he waited for, well, probably Oin to arrive, Bilbo took stock of their rooms as best he could from his seated position as Thorin moved off to talk to a guard and examine the dead and injured dwarrow in the room. Most of the furniture was smashed, usually laying in pieces over the bodies in the room. He could just imagine Thorin grabbing the lovely little chest that held most of Thorin’s usual court jewelry and smashing it over the back of someone. Dust, rock, bits of iron, and splinters of wood coated everything. A quick glance upward showed cracks in one of the mirrors that reflected light into the room during the day. Bilbo made a face. Those would need to be replaced too. He idly wondered if their sitting room had faired any bet-
Bilbo flailed slightly, bringing Sting up between himself and whoever had just touched his head by his ear.
Oin gave him a very unimpressed look.
“Sorry!” Bilbo said, setting Sting aside. “I didn’t hear you coming.”
Oin frowned and tilted Bilbo’s head to the side. He turned and said something to someone behind him and Bilbo could barely hear him say Thorin’s name as well as Ori’s over the whistling in his ears.
Nori, Ori, and Thorin all came over and Ori handed Oin a pencil and a couple sheets of blank paper he pulled from his bag. Oin scribbled something down and held it up for Bilbo to read.
“No, I can’t hear anything really. Well, that’s not entirely true. I can hear this high pitched sound and it won’t stop. I can kind of hear muffled shouting but nothing very distinct. I think I heard you call for Thorin and Ori just a moment ago.”
Oin nodded and turned Bilbo’s head to the side so he could look at his ear and then turned his head the other way to look at the other before writing on his paper again.
“Both ears,” Bilbo said. “I hear it in both ears.”
Oin nodded and wrote again.
“Miner’s ear? What’s that?” Bilbo asked and waited as Oin wrote some more. The old healer detailed symptoms miner’s sometimes experienced when they were too close to an explosion when they were blasting deeper into rock. Apparently, it looked like Bilbo had ruptured something in his ear, causing the bleeding and the yellow goo to seep out. The high pitched note would continue for a while as his ears healed as best they could.
“I see,” Bilbo said slowly. “So, I’ll be all right then? Just might take a while.”
Oin shrugged, writing again. Not everyone recovered their hearing. Time would only tell. Was Bilbo hurt anywhere else?
Bilbo showed Oin the cut on his side and sat patiently as Oin bound the wound. Once finished, Bilbo leaned back in his chair, eyes drifting closed as the last of the adrenaline faded from his body, only to be replaced by a familiar bone-deep fatigue he remembered from other battles he’d been in. Only this time, Thorin wasn’t grievously injured, thus keeping Bilbo wound up tight as he waited for news. He relaxed as Thorin talked to Oin and the guards, having his own head wound stitched closed. An apprentice worked on Nori’s leg and arm until Oin finished with Thorin.
Bilbo drifted away for a time, only to come alert when Thorin placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Time to go?” Bilbo asked and Thorin nodded. “Good. I could use a bath around now.”
Thorin smiled and shook his head slightly, helping Bilbo to his feet and leading him out of the room and down the hallway.
“What was Ori doing there, I wonder?” Bilbo said as they climbed into bed after a warm bath and various pain-killing medicines Oin left with them. They were settled into one of the guest suits, this one usually reserved for when Dain Ironfoot visited. He yawned as he curled up against Thorin’s side, trying to ignore the strange ringing in his ears and the way no other sound seemed to make it through. He could feel the rumble of Thorin’s voice in his chest but still couldn’t hear him talk. “You’ll have to write it down for me tomorrow. I still can’t hear,” Bilbo said.
Thorin nodded and wrapped his arm around Bilbo, pulling him almost painfully close. Bilbo didn’t protest, instead rubbed his forehead against Thorin’s chest and let sleep pull him under and away from the lingering pain in his body and especially in his ears.
~*~*~
Thorin slid out of bed the next morning, careful not to bother Bilbo before silently making his way back to their rooms.
The sight was not encouraging. Not only had the attackers destroyed a good portion of the wall between their bedroom and sitting room, but they’d also apparently blown through the wall to the sitting room from the room (an unused suite) opposite their bedroom. Add the ruined doors to the greenhouse into the mix, and only the wall into the hallway remained unscathed. Once the attackers had made it into the sitting room, they’d unlocked the front door, letting more assailants enter. The guards that had been posted in the royal wing had been killed or wounded beyond the ability to continue fighting.
He started working his way through the debris, nudging stones aside and taking note of all of their mangled belongings amongst the detritus around him.
“I’m sorry I had to let it go this far.”
“I understand why,” Thorin said without looking at Nori. The spymaster seemed to materialize near the doors to the gardens. “I wish you had trusted me enough to tell me what you were doing though.”
Nori shrugged. “Couldn’t tell if anyone was listening.”
“Paranoia isn’t a good look on you,” Thorin said.
“Just because I’m paranoid, it doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there trying to kill you.”
Thorin gave the remains of his armchair a kick, sending it crashing into further splinters. “I’m so pleased your paranoia is for my sake.”
Nori snorted. “You’ve got nothing to do with it,” he said and followed Thorin through the broken doorway to the bedroom. “Who do you think is the first to be executed after a monarchy falls to someone else in a hostile takeover?”
“The spymaster,” they chorused, sharing a rueful glance.
“Followed by the Captain of the Royal Guard,” Dwalin said from where he crouched next to the fireplace, looking up the flue. He straightened and threw a glare at Nori. “You couldn’t warn me this was coming?”
“And let you take all my fun?” Nori demanded with a flirtatious grin.
“Cut that out. You have a One,” Dwalin growled before turning his gaze to Thorin. “The one night I decide to take off and you almost get killed in your sleep.”
Nori cackled. “Oh, they weren’t sleeping!”
“Even better,” Dwalin said and heaved a resigned sigh. “I’m going to have to station an entire garrison inside your rooms to keep you safe, especially if you’re going to leave yourself open to attack like that.”
Thorin made an obscene gesture at Dwalin. “I’m not even going to bother addressing that comment.” He turned to look at his ruined bed. Structurally, it would be fine, except for the massive chunk of wall that had smashed the footboard. The blood splattered across the bedding guaranteed Thorin would be commissioning a new bed the moment their rooms were repaired. Dori would be peeved that his fine work had been ruined.
“Did any of them survive the night?” Thorin asked.
Nori grinned at him. “Yes, and some of them aren’t exactly dedicated to the cause.”
“What do you mean?” Thorin asked sharply, looking up from his examination of a book. It must have been knocked off Bilbo’s bedside table during the skirmish. Most of the pages littered the ground, torn and covered in grime.
“Mercenaries,” Dwalin said, grinning. “Newer recruits to their group.”
“Meaning?”
“Mercenaries will flip on their employer for the right amount of coin. Newer recruits aren’t going to be as devoted, as convinced to the cause. It makes them easier to turn, easier to get information out of.”
“Some of them that we caught last night aren’t zealots. We got them to talk.”
Thorin’s grin was wolfish. “Excellent. Who are we dealing with and how soon can we have them in custody?”
“None of that now,” Nori said reprovingly, slapping a hand over Dwalin’s mouth. “I need to confirm with Lira. Just because a few had the same story doesn’t mean they aren’t lying to us and licking my hand isn’t going to get me to move it. I deal with far more disgusting things on a regular basis. You’re just giving me ideas.”
Dwalin scowled over the top of Nori’s hand but nodded at Thorin.
“You’ve been away from Lira too long,” Thorin admonished as Nori pulled his hand away from Dwalin’s face. He couldn’t help the concerned tone that colored the rebuke.
“Don’t give me that, Thorin,” Nori said. “I’ve been in complete control the entire time.”
Thorin didn’t remark on that. “When does the caravan arrive?” he asked.
“Conveniently enough, today,” Nori said. “Speaking of, we have to get a move on.” He grabbed Dwalin’s arm, just above his elbow and started dragging him to the door. “Enjoy the day being confined to the royal quarters, Your Majesty!” he called over his shoulder.
Thorin sighed. “Send Oin up to check on Bilbo, would you please?”
~*~*~
The first thing Bilbo noticed when he woke was pain, followed by the long, high whine He’d fallen asleep hearing. His ears hurt . He groaned and cracked his eyes open, searching for Thorin. He needed Oin, or at least Oin’s remedies, to make the pain go away .
Thorin wasn’t in bed with him. In fact, the room was empty of anyone. Carefully, Bilbo sat up and waited for the dizzy spell to pass before climbing out of bed and searching for some clean clothes.
After dressing, he headed for the door, only to find Thorin sitting in the room adjacent to the bedroom they’d taken over the night before.
“Good morning,” Bilbo said as he took a seat at the table next to Thorin and helped himself to the smallish breakfast laid out on it as well as the tea. He could smell the blend of herbs Oin had prescribed him for painkillers. He drank his tea first, grimacing at the poor taste and pouring him a second cup from the other teapot. This one had a much more reasonable citrus taste to it.
Thorin looked up, a smile stretching across his face. His lips moved and Bilbo could vaguely hear some of the rumble of Thorin’s voice beneath the constant whistle.
“Talk slower,” Bilbo said. “I might be able to understand you.”
“You’re getting your hearing back?” Thorin asked, talking slowly and carefully.
Barely understanding Thorin’s words, Bilbo shrugged. “Maybe? I can hear a bit of sound, but it’s still muffled, like my head’s under water or something. The whistling hasn’t stopped either.”
Thorin nodded. “Oin will be here soon,” he said. “Nori has confined us to the royal wing for the time being.”
Shaking his head, Bilbo set his teacup aside and started in on some toast, chewing gingerly as each motion sent pain radiating from his ears into his brain. “That hasn’t done us much good so far,” he said as he examined his teacup. It was the same white with black filigree set he’d found and taken a liking to when they’d retaken the mountain.
Thorin shrugged. “We can’t do much about that but wait right now. Nori and Dwalin have confessions, but Nori wants to confirm details with Lira.”
Bilbo looked up. “The caravan arrives soon?”
“Today,” Thorin said with a nod.
“Oh Love,” Bilbo said, reaching across the table to place his hand on Thorin’s. “I know you wanted to ride out to welcome the last of your people home.”
Thorin shrugged. “Fili is leading those sent to greet them. There are more important matters I must attend to at the moment. I will greet them soon enough.”
Bilbo smiled sadly, grateful that Thorin cared enough for him to want to stay behind but also heartbroken that he couldn’t bring the last of his people along the final day’s march of their long journeying. “Fili will do well. Is Lady Sigrid accompanying him?”
Thorin nodded. “They will cause quite a stir when their braids are noticed.”
Bilbo laughed and then groaned, his hands going to his ears. The pain . It wasn’t unbearable by any means, but the consistent ache with the sharp stabbing pains whenever he moved his jaw the wrong way was agony .
“Oin will be here soon,” Thorin said, placing his hands over Bilbo’s ears. Bilbo pressed Thorin’s palms closer still, the heat radiating off them somehow helping ease the discomfort.
Oin did arrive shortly after to examine Bilbo. The medicines he left them with was more powerful than anything he’d given Bilbo before and warned him it would make him tired but would relieve the pain. Oin warned Thorin to make sure Bilbo only took small amounts at certain intervals before leaving.
Bilbo took the first dose of the plant after going back into the bedroom, frowning at the bitter taste but settling back in the bed. “Why was Ori near our rooms last night?” Bilbo asked, waiting for the poppy to work.
“He was apparently delivering a book to Dis after working in the library late,” Thorin said, settled in the chair next to Bilbo. Balin had brought a mound of paperwork for him to go through while Oin had examined Bilbo’s side and rebandaged the wound there.
“I see,” Bilbo said and yawned. “We were lucky he was there.”
Thorin let the paper he was reading through rest on his lap as he looked towards the far wall without really seeing it. “We were indeed,” he said softly.
Knowing he would need to thank the scribe later, Bilbo thought of the treats he could bake as a gift as he drifted off to sleep, the pain in his ears decreasing as he did.